Surgical tourniquet cuffs are applied around the limb of a patient for preventing the flow of arterial blood past the tourniquet to a part of the limb that is positioned in a bloodless surgical field.
Generally, prior art tourniquet cuffs include an inflatable portion, often referred to as a bladder. When such a cuff is applied to encircle a patient's limb, the bladder is inflated to expand by an amount sufficient to apply pressure that prevents arterial blood flow through the limb during the surgery. Specifically, the inflatable cuff is secured to the limb such that pressure on the limb that is generated in the inflated, expanded cuff is transferred to the limb tissue in an amount that is high enough to prevent or occlude arterial blood flow during the surgical procedure.
For safe and uniform application of the pressure for occluding blood flow, it is important that the inflatable bladder of the cuff overlaps itself when applied to encircle the limb. Upon inflation, however, there is a tendency for the overlapping, inflated portions of the cuff to move out of longitudinal alignment. Put another way, the overlapping portion of the cuff may shift laterally or sideways, away from the overlapped portion, which motion can unexpectedly alter the amount or uniformity of the pressure applied to the limb. Such shifting is most likely to occur when the cuff is applied around limbs that taper or are otherwise non-cylindrical in the region where the cuff is applied, as is the limb shown at 6 in FIG. 1.
Some prior art tourniquets include a pair of tie ribbons that hang from the overlapped portion of the tourniquet cuff so that the user (the person applying the cuff) can tie the ribbons together in a knot or bow after the overlapping portion of the cuff is in place. Although such tie ribbons have long been in use, they do not assist the user in properly aligning the overlapping cuff portions prior to tying together the ribbons. Moreover, since the ribbons are typically fabric or other material that can be tied together manually, a user may fail to tie the ribbons tightly enough around the two overlapping cuff portions to prevent the sideways shifting problem noted above. Accordingly, the safety of the cuff in this regard is dependent upon the diligence of the user when securing the tie ribbons.
The present invention is directed to a surgical tourniquet cuff that includes a stabilizer component that facilitates rapid and consistent application of an overlapping cuff around the limb of a patient. The stabilizer is fixed to the cuff, and requires no tying or similar manipulation to secure the overlapping cuff in alignment with the underlying cuff. The stabilizer thus improves the stability of the inflated cuff to prevent the above-mentioned sideways motion when the cuff is inflated and expanded after application to the limb.
The stabilizer offers additional advantages, such as providing a handle mechanism to enable the user to snugly apply the overlapping cuff around the patient's limb while the overlapping portions remain properly aligned along their long axes.
The stabilizer is designed to also facilitate attaching together two tourniquet cuffs end-to-end, with respective bladders overlapping and in proper alignment so that those attached cuffs can be used as a single, extended surgical cuff applied around a patient's limb. This is useful in instances where the patient's limb is so large that a single cuff does not have sufficient length to encircle the limb.
The stabilizer as well as a port that is used for inflating the cuff bladder are located in close proximity at one end of the cuff in a manner that permits the user to positively locate the cuff port (hence the overlapping cuff portions) at a selected anatomical location on the patient's limb, irrespective of variations in the limb circumference from one patient to the next. Such positive location eliminates the need to rotate an attached cuff around a patient's limb to locate the port in a desired location to, for example, best expose the port for connection to an inflation source. Moreover, the port is located so that it does not interfere with overlapping one portion of the cuff upon another portion.